Biography Eldzier Cortor

African-American painter and printmaker Eldzier Cortor, a modernist emphasizing the depiction of Black women, was born in Richmond, Virginia in 1916, but moved with his family to Chicago, Illinois when he was one year old. As a child, he wanted to create comic strips, copying Leslie Rogers' "Bungleton Green," his favorite, among others. He attended Englewood High School with future artists Charles White and Charles Sebree. His father did not support his interest in art and Cortor was forced to drop out of school to work.

A member of the "Chicago Renaissance of Black Art" in the 1930s and 1940s, he studied drawing at night at the Art Institute of Chicago in 1936. He also studied at Columbia University in New York City. He was a found
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